


still she haunts me, phantomwise

by rudderless in an ocean of stars (indelibly_ellie)



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe, Man of Steel (2013), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Child Abuse, Coming of Age, Don't say I didn't warn you, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Lois-centric, Pre-EVERYTHING, Pre-Movie(s), Read at Your Own Risk, Suicide, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, anything else and i'll be giving away the whole story, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 04:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8431537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indelibly_ellie/pseuds/rudderless%20in%20an%20ocean%20of%20stars
Summary: Lois Lane's path to becoming the ruthless, risk-taking reporter we all know and love. Later, the story will alternate between past/present-day as necessary. Read at your own risk. (loosely inspired by the epilogue poem of Lewis Carrol's Through The Looking Glass)





	1. long has paled that sunny sky

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize in advance for whatever triggering material this entire work contains. This is pretty much a dark!Lois fic.

Zoe's funeral is held on a warm, bright spring day. _It's almost obscene_ , Lois thinks, _for it to be so beautiful today._  For a brief moment, she wonders if laughing would be inappropriate.

These safe, calm- _rational_ \- thoughts don't last long. The people behind her try and fail to keep their voices low, and every word replaces the sweet lethargy in her veins with slow, simmering rage.

It's Mary and Charlotte- the leaders of her school's bible study group and Chastity Circle's most prominent members. They weren't close friends of Zoe's, not like Billy from the chess club, who weeps into a checkered handkerchief- not like _Lois_. Still, their status as the religious it-girls of this bible belt town had been enough to warrant them seats in the second row.

And as much as Lois longs to turn around to choke the self-righteous twats with the metaphorical chastity belts they so clearly wore like freaking _crowns_ , she knows better. Hell, she _is_ better. Causing a scene at her best friend's funeral over a poorly whispered conversation? Not worth it.

So she tunes them out, allows her gaze to drift towards the clouds dancing across the sky, until-

"-I don't even know why we bothered to attend, Char. It's not like that dyke's going to heaven anyways," Mary mutters, disdain practically dripping from her lips. Charlotte barely manages to smother her laughter.

And once again, all Lois can see is _red_.

Before anyone even realizes she's up and out of her seat, Lois Lane has leapt over her chair and slammed her fist into Mary's face, relishing the crunchy, popping sound that the other girl's nose makes when it breaks beneath her knuckles. Startled screams shatter the quiet serenity of the ceremony, and Lois begins to draw her arm back for another swing, stopped only by the strong arms that suddenly encircle her waist and begin to drag her away from her target.

The joke's on them, though, because Lois has been taking kickboxing since she could _walk_ , so the vicious double jumping kick she unleashes using the weight of her attacker as leverage sends Charlotte crashing back a full two rows of seating. The force of the blow sends Lois and her newfound assailant toppling back, but the pain of the fall is a price well-paid in her book.

Her teeth gash across her bottom lip at the jarring impact of hitting the ground, and the taste of iron floods her mouth. She rolls off of the man behind her, spits, and looks up to see Charlotte being helped to her feet by other attendees. Lois bares her teeth in a savage grimace- and knows that blood colors her twisted grin when Charlotte stumbles back, horrified, at the sight.

Later, when her father's hand comes down across her face with the force of a _whip_ , and the sound of the slap echoes across the room, she doesn't make a sound. It gives her a dark sense of satisfaction to know how much it bothers him that she never _does_ \- never cries, never screams, never begs for him to stop.

Lois has been beyond asking for mercy since the day she realized he sought her tears, sought verbal expressions of pain, before halting his blows. He uses her pain to gauge the effectiveness of his punishments, and she downright _relishes_ never showing any outward signs of suffering. It only serves to further ignite his rage, of course, and every instance of her defiance was met with another round of hits, but she had stood firm _then_ , and stands even firmer _now_. The bruises are well-worth the sight of genuine fear in his eyes at the dark smile she gives him from the floor. It unsettles him, this rebellion of hers, though they both know he'll never own up to the fact. 

But she _knows_ , knows that it downright _terrifies_ him to see her smile as though he'd just given her gifts instead of slaps and punches, and that knowledge is _worth_ the throbbing pains that keep her awake throughout the nights when he's lost in a bottle of scotch and looking someone to _blame_. 

So she takes the hit without complaint, and smirks when the silence between them grows heavy with all the things she doesn't have to even bother voicing.

She peels herself off of the floor with the all the stiff-backed grace of a queen, her smirk only growing when he flinches away from the weight of her gaze as she brushes past him on her way to the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did reading about that epic punch make you as happy as I was writing it? I hope so.
> 
> The next two chapters will be flashbacks to what led to this moment.
> 
> Leave a review, house a displaced alien from a dead planet.


	2. an evening of July

"Zoe!" Lois pushes open the front door without preamble, having deftly picked the lock within seconds of climbing up the porch the steps. "Zoe, you're never gonna believe what happened at volleyball practice today-" She pauses for breath at the top of the stairs, narrowing her eyes at her friend's bedroom door, which sits uncharacteristically ajar. 

"Zoe?" Her voice is softer now, tentative, as she approaches the room. The bed's empty, but the sound of running water draws her towards the bathroom. "I don't care if you're naked, I'm barging in there to-"

Her foot hits a soggy patch of carpet with an unpleasant squelch and the words die in her throat.

Alarm bells blare in the back of her mind as she realizes that the water is still running _must have been running for over an hour now and it's not like Zoe would ever forget to turn off the faucet so that can only mean_ -

"Zoe!" She shoulders open the door, nearly slipping on the tiles as she stumbles onto the floor of the flooding bathroom. Pure instinct has her reaching for her phone before her eyes even catch sight of the tub.

Everything is red.

Everything

is

_red_.

The phone slips through her fingers, hitting the floor with a muted clatter as the water muffles its impact. She drops to her knees, scrambling for her waterlogged phone, already on autopilot as she dials a sequence she knows by heart. "9-1-1, what is your emergency?"

"This is Lois Lane. There's been an incident. 247 Rosewood Drive. Zoe Walters. She's slit her wrists." Her eyes, darting frantically around the room, trying to find something that isn't _red_ , and lock onto an empty orange bottle. "I think she's taken something too. Please hurry."

Once more, the phone hits the floor. She doesn't bother to pick it up as she fumbles for the empty container with quickly numbing fingers, eyes straining to make out the prescription, blurry and fading from the water. Her breathing stops when she makes out a name- Lane. It's her prescription from the appendectomy she'd undergone a month ago.

There's a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she forces herself to stand, gaze drawn to Zoe's pale, pale face. "It's okay, it's okay, I just have to get you out of there, I just-"

One foot in the tub. The other. The bloody water soaks through her clothes in seconds, and she fights to maintain some semblance of composure as she sinks deeper into the tub.  _Keep breathing, Lo, keep breathing._ She lowers herself into the water behind Zoe, reaching to hook her elbows underneath the other girl's arms as she struggles to stand. "I got you, I got you, I got-"

She slips. Falls. Vaguely realizes there's blood in her mouth and a throbbing in the side of her face from slamming into the edge of the tub. Her breath hitches as she tightens her arms around the other girl. "I got you, Zo. I got you."

"You'll be alright, Zo. I got you. I got you." She mumbles the mantra over and over into Zoe's tangled curls like a prayer until she can't speak anymore because she can't _breathe anymore_ , and settles for pressing her lips against her scalp as she entwines their fingers beneath the water. Zoe's fingers are stiff and cold and she tries her best not to break down at the feel of them.

She stays like that, rocking back and forth, clutching Zoe's prone form to her chest as she tries ( _fails_ ) to suppress the mounting panic rising in her chest because _oh god she's not breathing she's not breathing she's not breathing Zoe wake up Zoe wake up_

_Zoe Zoe Zoe Zoe Zoe Zoe please_

People enter the room. She does not see them.

People speak. She does not hear them.

_Miss Lane, please get out of the tub._

_Zoe Zoe come back i need you i need you please_

Her throat burns. There's an awful, animal noise echoing through the room. _Who is screaming? Who is screaming? What is the source of this horrible keening?_

_Miss Lane, we need to move her._

_don't leave me like this you promised you promised_

_Miss Lane..._

_i can't i can't i can't_

Her lungs burn and the room goes quiet. The screaming ends. It takes her seconds to decide that the silence is worse.

_She's unresponsive._

_Zoe stop playing around haha this is a joke right_

She doesn't even realize that she's laughing.

_\- in shock._

_joke's over Zo time to wake up_

_We need-_

_Zoe._

There's a prick in the side of her neck, and then darkness swallows her whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if this material was triggering, but believe me when I say that this is only the beginning. The other chapters will be (hopefully) better in terms of writing, but worse in terms of content.
> 
> Leave a review, house a displaced alien from a dead planet.


	3. autumn frosts have slain July

"Miss Lane?"

Her eyes are open, but her stare is vacant. 

There is no response. 

(There will be no response, not for days, not until the threat of forced intubation is very real and she lashes out at the nurses with a syringe that she most definitely shouldn't have been able to get her hands on but she does, because even like this, even reduced to the _palest shadow of herself_ she is still the daughter of a four-star army general and she'll be _damned_ if she lets anyone touch her.)

She leaves the hospital the very next day, and her father is too relieved by the fact that she's no longer practically comatose to heed the warnings of the hospital staff that there is a very real chance that _she is not alright_. 

She knows that the doctors mean well, but there is nothing they can do for her that she can't do herself. If there's anything Lois Lane is used to, it's being left behind by the people she cares about most. 

Grief has been her standard state of mind since the age of seven, ever since the news of her mother's car accident had reached her ears.

This- this emptiness inside her chest, this gaping wound reopened in the space where her beating heart should be- is nothing _new_ for Lois Lane.

But long as she remembers to play her part- to eat, to sleep, to speak, (to _breathe_ ,)- she'll be fine. She's always had a bit of a flair for the theatrical anyways, and her father will be none the wiser as long as she manages to go through the motions, as long as she manages to act like the ~~angry~~  sweet, ~~broken~~ perfect, ~~willful~~ obedient daughter he wants- _needs_ ( _I need this, Lois. I need this job, I need this life, and I need you to help me keep it-_ ) her to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the brevity.
> 
> Leave a review, house a displaced alien from a dead planet.


End file.
